SAP 505 World Championship - Great start for Boehm and Roos

The SAP 505 World Championship is now underway. There are two casinos within walking distance of the Barbados Yacht Club, and if anybody ought to hit the casinos tonight, it's German skipper Stefan Boehm, winner of the opening two races.

Racing continues through Friday in the sparkling Caribbean off Bridgetown, Barbados, where German sailors hold the top three spots on the leaderboard. In sailor-talk, Boehm and crewman Gerald Roos started hard-left in race one and led at every mark. They started hard-right in race two and led at every mark except one.

In the ever-changing world of wind and water, there is always a reason to favor one side of the racecourse or the other. At that second-race start, Boehm and Roos were looking at another left-favored situation, but—

The wind had only recently shifted direction to make the left side a quicker course to the first mark. 'We believed it had to come back to the right,' Boehm said. 'We bet on the right. It was kind of risky.' And for the first few minutes it looked like a bad bet. If the wind had remained stable from that point on, Boehm and Roos would have been lucky to finish in the middle of the fleet. But they got the wind shift they had bet on. Suddenly a transformed playing field favored the right-hand side. Boehm and Roos led the fleet around the weather mark, and to go back to sailor-speak, they were 'launched.'

Since 1954, 5O5 dinghies—about 16 feet long, or 5.05 meters—have been a staple of international sailing competition, attracting top talent and, just as importantly, holding that talent in the embrace of what the class calls 'family.' Sailors come to 5O5s and stay. In the big picture, that is a big part of why SAP has chosen to invest in the class and bring SAP Analytics to bear to make the sailing even better, collecting and analyzing data in real time for the sailor's 'news-you-can-use' as soon as the sailors come off the water.

Joining Boehm and Roos after the races in the SAP sailors' lounge were Class Lehmann and Leon Oehme, second in the standings with finishes of second and fourth, and past world champion Wolfgang Hunger with crewman Holger Jess, third on finishes of third and sixth. There are 76 boats entered, but seven of those did not compete, six are which are boats stuck in a container from the West Coast of the USA, not yet picked up from the dock in Trinidad.

That's an unfortunate story all around, especially for the Barbados team of Jason Tindale and Robert Povey, who have never sailed a 5O5 but thought they would get the chance through the generosity of a 5O5 believer who sincerely tried to provide a boat for them to sail.

In a change to the sailing instructions, the race committee announced late today that the racing calendar for Sunday has been expanded from one to two races, starting at noon local time.

But that dice cup on the table, Stefan. Can we have just a peek inside?